Leaning back in the chair he’d been handcuffed to, Gabriel yawned excessively
loudly, just to be annoying. The chain of the handcuffs ran through slits in the plastic back of the chair so he couldn’t go anywhere without taking it with him.
“What is your name,” the tall, black-uniformed questioner asked, pacing in front of him. He had the fuzziest black eyebrows that Gabriel had ever seen, almost completely obscuring his hard, dark eyes when they drew together. “Who do you work for? Why are you here? They’re simple questions.”
“Pancakes,” Gabriel said.
“What is your name. Who do you work for? Why are you here?”
“Waffles!”
“You’re only making things worse for yourself. Answer the damn questions.
What is your name? Who do you work for? Why are you here?”
“You know what goes well with waffles? I mean, you really wouldn’t think they would go together, but fried chicken—”
Cutting Gabriel off, the questioner backhanded him across the face hard enough that his vision blanked for a second. With his headache still going at full force, pain seemed to ring through his skull like a gong.
“What is your name,” Gabriel asked when his vision cleared. “Who do you work
for? Why are you here?”
“Listen up,” the questioner growled, putting his face right in front of Gabriel’s.
Wonder of wonders, his breath was even worse than that of the man that had taken him prisoner. “Start talking, or I’m going to get nasty with you.”
“Too late,” Gabriel replied.
“For now, this facility is under military jurisdiction, making you a military
prisoner. Torture is still legal on military prisoners.”
“Dude,” Gabriel gasped, trying not to gag. “Do the words ‘breath mint’ mean
anything to you? You don’t need to torture me, just keep breathing on me.”
Growling in frustration, the questioner went back to pacing.
Looking past him through the window as the outer door opened, Gabriel
wondered if this room had ever actually been intended as a cell, or if they were just improvising. Divided into two sections separated by glass, or possibly plastic, were the small, rectangular outer room and the cube shaped inner room. The outer room held a bank of computer consoles that were operated by a tech in a blue uniform, and the inner room was completely white and empty save for a table and three chairs. Neon light panels lit the inner room brightly, but one of them had a faulty tube that kept flickering, not good for Gabriel’s headache.
The only way through the dividing glass was to punch a four-digit code into the computer in the outer room. Questioners in the inner room had to signal the tech if they wanted out.
Somewhat less futuristic than other doors Gabriel had seen in the Spires, the one leading out into the hall had a knob and a keypad below it. A man in a white lab coat entered the outer room, nodding to the tech. Neither of them noticed the small black cat that crept in behind him and scampered under the computer consoles as the tech opened the inner door.
Gabriel smiled inwardly. The cavalry had arrived.
“These two are, well, I don’t even know where to begin,” lab coat said, handing a clipboard over to the questioner. “What do you make of this, Henry?”
Flipping through pages, Henry scowled, his incredibly furry brows drawing
together. “What are these things?”
“The girl, we’re calling her Miss Werewolf for the moment because she refuses to give a name, claims they’re called nano-machines. They seem to be infesting every single cell of her body and free floating in her blood. They’re actually visibly rewriting her genetic code, continuously adapting her body to external conditions. I think she used to be human, but we don’t even begin to know where to start classifying her now. Look at her resting temperature.”
“Good god,” Henry said in wonder. “Her brain should be frying like cheese in a skillet.”
“That was an hour ago. Since then these machines have lowered her body heat to normal levels, which is simply amazing. On top of that, she also seems to be emitting low levels of radiation, consistent with someone that has suffered fatally high exposure, but she doesn’t show a single sign of poisoning. What should I do with her? I mean, if we dissected her, even the most liberal Sentinels would crucify us, but her body could prove to be the greatest scientific discovery of the century.”
“God bless the politicians,” Henry muttered under his breath. “Take as many
samples as you can without permanently damaging her and send them to Excel for analysis. I think our first step should be to breed her and see if her offspring bear the same alterations. It’ll give us more specimens to study.”
“Yes sir. I’ve got his scans too. These implants in his hands connect directly to the memory centers of his brain. The jewels we took from him seem to be some sort of data storage devices.”
“Who are these people,” Henry asked. “We need to know who sent them and why.”
“No luck questioning him,” lab coat eyed Gabriel.
Gabriel did his best to blow him a kiss without the use of his hands.
“It’s like talking to a brick wall with an awful sense of humor,” Henry growled.
“The girl isn’t saying anything either. She seems to be getting almost orgasmic pleasure in acting like a complete idiot. You should have seen the trouble she gave the nurse we sent in to take blood and urine samples. Care if I give this one a try?”
“Be my guest,” Henry gestured with the clipboard and moved to the corner of the room, eyes scanning page after page.
Leaning over Gabriel, lab coat looked him in the eyes.
“Hello, I’m Aaron, head lab tech at this facility. I’m very interested in some of your technology, and where it came from. It’s very advanced, yet your weapons and clothing are highly archaic, almost like those of the Emperor’s Elite Guards, but not quite. Were you trying to impersonate one of them?”
Gabriel heard a familiar and very welcome rattling sound from Aaron’s coat
pocket. Looking down, he saw a green plastic bottle with a white cap and his jaw dropped. “Is that Excedrin?”
Aaron looked down into his pocket and removed the bottle, holding it up for
Gabriel to see. It was indeed.
“Damn, ten billion years and still going. I am totally buying stock in Excedrin.
Look, give me three of those and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Why,” Aaron asked suspiciously.
“Are you blind? Look at the bloody, bruising lump on my forehead. It hurts like a son of a bitch. Why do you think I want it?”
Aaron dumped three of the round, white pills into his hand and offered them to Gabriel. Gabriel opened his mouth and he dropped them in.
“Get some water in here so he can swallow those,” Aaron said to the tech in the outer room.
“No need,” Gabriel said as he dry swallowed the pills. He’d always been able to do that.
“Oh that’s just great,” Henry said. “Give the man I plan to torture some pain killers. Beautiful.”
“Well,” Aaron said, making a moving on gesture with his hand.
“I’m a time traveler. Originally from Earth in the distant past, but most recently from a few hundred years in your future.”
“You see,” Henry jabbed a finger at Gabriel. “That’s the sort of drivel I’ve had to put up with from him since I started two hours ago!”
“Well, if you don’t want the truth,” Gabriel tried to shrug, “I’ll take my Excedrin and call it a win.”